Tag Archives: brand

Karen Katz, CEO and President, Neiman Marcus answered my questions before an auditorium full of students, faculty and staff at the Mays Business School, Texas A&M on April 2, 2014. Karen Katz started as an assistant buyer with the company took over as the CEO in 2010. She is continuously engaged in delivering customized experience to Neiman Marcus’ luxury customers. I had a chance to moderate her talk. She spoke on a range of topics. Below is a video link to the interview.

Mobile marketing activities are growing at a rapid pace. The success of mobile marketing hinges on consumers’ adoption of mobile devices. However, consumers’ mobile device adoption is not well understood at the brand (e.g., Apple, Nokia, Samsung) level. We propose a conceptual framework linking mobile device brand loyalty (repurchase intention) to its drivers including perceived value, brand satisfaction, brand attachment and trust, and develop hypotheses about the moderating roles of adopter type and mobile technology generation in some of these linkages. We test these hypotheses using structural equation modeling on a unique cross-sectional dataset of attitudes toward mobile phone brands spanning two technology generations, 2.5G and 3G. The results reveal important asymmetries between adopter types and between technology generations: early adopters of mobile devices emphasize perceived value, whereas late adopters rely on brand satisfaction in developing brand loyalty; and consumers depend more on trust and less on perceived value in developing loyalty for the new generation than for the existing generation. We outline how brand managers of mobile devices should adapt their marketing strategies to different adopter
types and technology generations.

This course is designed to give you a good understanding of branding fundamentals, how to craft a successful branding strategy, and how to revitalize the brand to achieve business objectives. The focus will be on understanding and application of strategic branding concepts in the form of presentation and discussion of real-world examples. The module will emphasize the following key elements: 1. Strategic Analysis of Branding Issues: Issues of focal concern include analysis of customers, target audience, value proposition/positioning, brand equity, branding strategy, and brand revitalization; and 2. Branding Decision Making Process: This process enables executives and managers to systematically organize the relevant issues to make appropriate decisions on branding issues based on analysis of the market situation. The major emphasis of this process will be on application of the relevant branding analysis tools to the branding decisions.

Amid growing competition, retailers are increasingly interested in more effective aisle and display management strategies. These strategies involve placements of product categories in aisles and displays within each store to facilitate greater sales affinity (demand attraction) between categories to improve the store’s share of the customer wallet. We investigate the effects of aisle and display placements on the sales affinities between categories. We develop a spatial model of brand sales that allows for asymmetric store-specific affinity effects between two or more categories, while controlling for the effects of traditional merchandising and marketing mix variables, such as price, feature and display. We estimate the model on aggregate store-level data for regular cola and regular potato chip categories for a major retail chain, using hierarchical Bayesian methods. We show the usefulness and extension potential of the model through simulation of aisle placements for a third category. Our results show that aisle and display placements have significant and sizeable asymmetric effects on cross-category sales affinities comparable to those influenced by marketing mix variables. Retail managers can use our detailed store-level model and insights to develop customized aisle and display management for their individual stores.